Majority of IT leaders struggle with virtual data backup

Majority of IT leaders struggle with virtual data backup

A new study found that almost 90 percent of IT managers and decision-makers encounter problems with data backup solutions in virtual environments.

According to the study’s authors, this percentage has increased since it performed its last survey in 2010, when only 85 percent of respondents reported struggling with virtualization data backup. However, many of the top reasons for these issues remain the same, including data growth, high-energy demands, and data bottlenecks – though problems with the latter two did decline in the last 12 months, contrary to the overall results. At 41 percent, increasing data growth due to virtualization was the most cited reason for backup trouble. Virtual machine server sprawl was the least cited issue at 11 percent.

“The benefits of virtualization are well established, and more businesses are looking to extend these benefits to their environments,” said Robert Clark, a data protection expert. “However, this survey shows that while organizations are adopting virtualization as part of their data center, they often run into unforeseen challenges with data protection.”

In addition to struggling with backing up data on virtualized servers, the majority of respondents stated that implementing virtualization in the first place proved to be at least somewhat difficult.

Ultimately, many companies are focusing on managing data growth and improving their virtualized server backup capabilities. According to the study, data efficiency, data protection, backup and recovery policies, and hardware upgrades were the highest priorities for many respondents, with between 46 and 47 percent planning on doing at least one of these in the next 12 months. Finding the right backup and recovery software for business needs will determine the success of any endeavor to improve these issues and establishing a clear goal will help IT leaders on this path.

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